


bring the floor up to my knees

by chewsdaychillin



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Explicit Consent, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Pre-The Unknowing (The Magnus Archives), Rough Sex, but they do have a pretty fraught relationship, i will never write actual hate sex, little a softness, mentions of tims canon typical death wish, much guilt and apologising and making up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26288431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewsdaychillin/pseuds/chewsdaychillin
Summary: Some things can’t be fixed. But people can’t stand the weight of guilt, not weak people. And people still like to be kissed. What do you want? Jon asks him, kissing fabric down his chest. He’s not trying to fix anything, he promises weakly. Just trying not to waste time being endlessly sorry.
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker
Comments: 11
Kudos: 106





	bring the floor up to my knees

**Author's Note:**

> me? do a lowercase song lyric title? i guess theres a first for everyone and sometimes theres jus no other way ... (its adele - i miss you btw bc thats in my h*rny religion playlist that i was listening to writing this)
> 
> there is reference to them having a convo about jons sexuality in their past relationship. everythings a bit fraught and rough but they care about each other and consent, wouldnt write it any other way.

Whatever black humour, dark irony, the universe working in cruel and mysterious ways really  _ is _ , Jon decides sharing a room and a crappy mattress with Tim on their last night before all of...  _ that _ kicks off is a perfect example. 

It takes a great deal of wordless easing into it before they can talk, then a great deal of awkward talking over crap TV to get to talking that doesn’t feel like pulling teeth, or poking at the gummy hole the tooth once occupied.  By the time Jon comes out of the bathroom and sees Tim sitting in a thin T-shirt and boxers on the edge of the bed, there seems enough salt in the wound to lick at it and at least taste something worth savouring. 

He walks over with the deep shamelessness only guilty beggars can mine, stands between Tim's knees and kisses him. 

Tim kisses him back and hot relief melts into the tingling adrenaline. 

This isn’t forgiveness, Tim tells him (but he arches his neck under Jon’s mouth all the same). This doesn’t fix anything. 

Some things can’t be fixed. But people can’t stand the weight of guilt, not weak people. And people still like to be kissed. What do you want? Jon asks him, kissing fabric down his chest, kneeling on the crunching carpet and kissing his bare knees. He’s not trying to fix anything, he promises weakly, kissing the crease Tim's calf makes where it’s bent against his thigh. Just trying not to waste time being endlessly sorry. 

‘Or thinking you hate me,’ he adds, because it’ll corner Tim into refuting him. He hopes it does. 

‘Come here,’ Tim sighs, pulling him standing again. He wraps his arms around Jon’s waist and pulls them tight, pulls him close so his chin is on Jon’s navel, looking up at him. ‘Don’t make me tell you I don’t - you  _ know _ I don’t but I-’ he sighs. ‘I don’t know.’

His palms stroke slowly up Jon’s back as he talks, though it’s unclear who he’s trying to sooth. His hands, as they always are, are warm and heavy. The skin on skin feels good. Calming. Tender if it can’t be forgiving. Jon spreads his fingers into Tim’s hair, stroking the unfamiliar length of it in return and feeling every little bump of his scalp.

‘It’s okay,’ he says. Sorry, again, for needing something. For setting a trap. ‘I - I know I fucked it up. But I don’t want you walking in there tomorrow with a death wish when I haven’t even tried to give you- something.’ He holds back from choking on that. Channels it into his hands instead. ‘Something good-’

Hands go down. It would be exploratory if they hadn’t been there time and time before, years ago. Returning to a land discovered before, then. Nostalgic. A fairground, a resort, a university town as an adult with a proper job. Somewhere fun. Somewhere that’s always home, always safe, but rings of  _ used to, used to, used to. _

It’s scarred now - little raised rims of deep holes that can just about be felt through Tim’s T-shirt. His chest is a bit softer than it was before; his stomach isn’t as hard as it was when he was laughing the muscles to the surface in a corner of the library. Tim probably gave up a bit on the gym in his depression. All of this is Jon’s fault, of course, but the guilt he feels, always feels, is rather ineffective when it still feels so good to touch. 

Tim doesn’t stop his hands but his sigh is only half needy contentment. Half something more like an actual sigh. Jon doesn’t owe him anything like that, he says, and he doesn’t want to take anything. Doesn’t want to take advantage. He shuffles back a bit but his eyes are dark and wide.

Jon climbs into his lap, slides his arms around Tim's neck. ‘Why don't you ask me what I want?’

Tim barks a bitter sound. ‘Happily ever after?’

He’s looking at the ugly print on the duvet so Jon takes his face in both hands, thumbs on the apples of his cheeks, and pushes their foreheads together. Forcing him to listen. 

‘I want you inside me tonight in case I never see you again.’

Tim does actually laugh then, a scoffing huff as he shakes his head. Jon frowns at him, but when he looks back up any cruelty has gone from his face. 

‘How do you still manage to surprise me?’ He asks, and maybe the softness is mostly nostalgia too but it's still soft. Amused. Fond, even. ‘Just when I think I know what the next out of your mouth is gonna-’ 

He’s cut off with Jon’s retort - a hard kiss he won’t have seen coming but makes him groan anyway. 

It tastes good - that sound from his mouth, needy and a bit weak. He probably resents it - that’s why the next noise he manages is a growl accompanied with a nip of his teeth - but it’s been too long for that bit of submission, of promise, not to be fucking delicious. Jon tongues at it, licks into Tim's mouth and moans a little back to encourage him. He grinds forward, crosses his arms closer with every kiss, trying to douse them both in this - get them both drunk on the desperation of  _ it has to be now.  _

No need to examine why. 

Eventually Tim lets his shirt come off. ‘You’re serious?’ He checks as it needs wiggling over his head. 

It’s the kind of thing he used to say with his eyebrow raised, part of their back and forth seamlessly integrated into the transition to  _ oh this time? This time we’re going there?  _

(‘Oh, do you want me to like... tone anything down?’ He’d asked when Jon had told him that  _ this _ \- they’d been in bed with the duvet kicked off, ignoring the wet patch - was not exactly a  _ one  _ off, but a not very often off. 

‘No, I don’t mind the jokes.’

‘You don’t?’

‘You make me laugh.’ 

‘Okay,’ Tim had grinned, ‘you’ll just have to tell me when you’re serious.’)

Tim doesn’t comment on the sachets of lube or the condom he finds in Jon's jeans, or the fact they’re clearly from the old coin-op vending machine in the hotel bathroom. 

He doesn’t say anything actually, unsteady as his breathing is getting as they shuffle and rotate, swishing the sheets and kicking the duvet down the bed. 

Jon lies down on a lumpy single pillow, lets Tim kneel over him work him open on his back. He says nothing either, sounds of pleasure choked a bit with his chin squashed into his chest so he can watch. Watch Tim’s hand splayed over his hip bone, keeping his legs apart. Watch one finger, then slowly two fuck into him. Watch how Tim's watching him stretch, his breathing getting pitchy with groans as he strokes and scissors. 

He crooks his fingers and has Jon grabbing at words again. 

‘Now,’ Jon manages, teeth gritting on a whine. ‘Ready now. How d’you want me?’

‘On your knees?’

In another situation it might hurt his feelings not to want to be looked at. But good, fine. Tim’s got anger, let’s at least use it productively. 

(‘Alright?’ he asks as he lines himself up. 

‘Yeah,’ Jon tells him. 

Two hushed sounds in two seconds that barely count as words but count for everything.)

The first thrust in is punishing, but Jon relishes the rough stretch of it, the way the feeling of being full and wholly  _ with _ someone makes his breath hitch. Tim lets a noise escape behind him and he’d blush if this was like it was before. 

Instead he pushes back again to force Tim closer, and sighs when Tim takes the hint. He lies, just a little, over Jon’s back, like he’s scared of being held up, like he’s scared Jon’s spine won’t hold him. Another thrust has him grunting where he won’t let himself groan proper. He wraps a strong arm around Jon’s fluttering stomach to pull him back again onto his cock. His hand on Jon’s side is already sweaty as he sets a guttural pace. 

It’s good. It feels good to feel something harsh and constant, to hear the slap of skin and know it is someone’s that would never hurt you. Aside from the fact his fingernails are digging into Jon’s hip like he’s holding on for dear life. 

It’s so painfully sweet of him, to be desperate too, clutching little half moons that will be there tomorrow morning as they load up the van with dynamite. Sweet of him to angle like he does, pushing hard against places he knows, or he guesses, or he remembers, will have Jon keening. 

Jon nearly says  _ I miss you _ , which wouldn’t be fair at all. Instead he takes the next thrust with his mouth open, lets a harsh and honest moan fall out of him because he knows it was always appreciated and it's the closest thing he can give to love now. 

Tim’s hips stutter out then, go still against him and Jon can feel Tim's stomach pushing against the small of his back as he half collapses. ‘Fuck,’ he chokes out, ‘I miss you.’

Jon screws his eyes up against the tide of it. But only for a second. As much as that hurts more than any scrape or bite to hear, he can see the cringing look on Tim's face without looking. Can feel regret crackling and snapping like a dying fire in the sweat-hot air of the sterile hotel room. His instinct, awkward as it all is, is desperate comfort. 

So he pulls off, ignores Tim's small groan at ruining it, and turns around. Kneeling on the sheet that he’s rucked up and twisted, he fixes his best human stare on Tim's naked face. 

The silence feels so long he can feel his body asking  _ what the hell happened?  _ Feeling empty now. Chest rising and falling quick as a rabbit’s. 

‘Sorry,’ Tim says sheepishly. He’s still hard too, flushed angry red all over. Jon tries not to look, tries to meet his avoidant gaze. Tim scoffs again, turns harsh. ‘Christ, don’t know how I ended up apologising to  _ you  _ now.’

‘If I say the same is that better or worse?’ 

Tim groans, leans back against the headboard. ‘Fucking mess, this is.’

_ Sorry  _ Jon tells him, with everything but his mouth as he crawls up and bed and back into Tim's lap.  _ Sorry  _ as he tries to catch another kiss, then tries to make it better, deeper.  _ Sorry  _ going up on his knees to shuffle forward, chest to chest, and lower himself back onto Tim's cock. He’s not sorry at all to swallow down the weak sound Tim makes around his tongue. 

Doing all the work has him sweating, shaking, panting in less time than it takes for the awkwardness to phase. Panting and swallowing to wet his tongue and back to panting. Eventually kissing has to stop, falls off into just breathing and sounding out choked moans. Tim presses his mouth to Jon’s throat instead, not making marks, just resting the points of his teeth close enough to the pulse point to counter the pitch of his whines. Jon thinks, somehow, through it all, that his neck might snap with how hard he’s stretching it back. His chin is pointed right up at the white ceiling. 

He’s close, close enough to almost hurt, but he doesn’t take his hands off Tim's shoulders until he feels them trembling too. If he had enough air to form proper words, if he had the nerve, he’d urge Tim on with words. A sore  _ come on  _ in his ear,  _ harder, please, you’re so good, I’m so close.  _ Instead he clenches his stomach tight to hold back the building scream, curls his toes against their shaking. Pushes his fingers back into Tim's awkwardly grown-out hair and  _ pulls  _ as he grinds harder. 

Tim comes like he’s breaking and grabs at any part of Jon he can reach to stop it - hip, thigh, elbow - landing like smacks. His groan comes out like a growl, teeth closing where they fall against Jon's collarbone. It’s only then, as he’s chasing pleasure in a moment of not resenting it, burying himself hard, hitting just right, that Jon lets go and shoves his hand down around himself. 

His strokes are feverish, just the touch almost enough relief to hurt. Then Tim’s hand joins his, the soft underside of his fingers slotting like a cog, like a jigsaw, like another fucking half over Jon’s knuckles and guiding his jerking hand. He comes as Tim's still shaking, trembles and groans himself as he feels the condom fill inside him. 

They come down from it together, heads falling forward with the exhaustion of strained necks until their foreheads collide messily. 

Sharing the bed shouldn’t be awkward after all that. It still is a bit, back in cold pyjamas with brushed teeth and still clammy feet. There’s no more kissing, but it would seem pathetic to roll over after all of that. So they sleep face to face, or at least front to front - Tim’s always slept with his face buried in the pillow. 

Jon decides against trying to  _ cuddle _ , since it’s all a fucking mess. But he sweeps Tim's hair out of his mouth when he thinks he’s asleep, and when Tim isn’t quite asleep, he lets his hand get lifted back to his own pillow. There’s a squeeze. It lingers. Tims fingers drift away slowly as his eyes close, and are still touching Jon’s when he starts to snore. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading :)) leave me a commentë? 
> 
> you might know already but im currently taking fic commissions as a way to supplement my income doing something i love to do. you can find my post w prices n details [here](https://babyyodablackwood.tumblr.com/post/630528010471211008/ao3-fic-commissions-kofi-i-am-offering-proof) ! there's also a link to my k*fi on there. ao3 doesn't like ebegging apparently but it's their if you're interested in helping me out x


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